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Rabbi Aharon Kahn was named Joel Jablonski Professor of Talmud and Codes at Yeshiva University’s affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) in 1988. A specialist in rabbinic law, Rabbi Kahn was ordained at RIETS in 1969 and later earned Semikhah Yadin Yadin, the highest level of rabbinic ordination, from the late Torah sages Rabbi Mendel Zaks and Rabbi Moshe Duber Rivkin. For 20 years, he studied with the late, revered Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Leib Merkin Distinguished Professor of Talmud and Jewish Philsophy at RIETS, who was considered the foremost authority on Halakhah (Jewish law) and chief mentor and inspiration of authentic Jewish leadership on this continent. For ten of those years, he was Rabbi Soloveitchik’s assistant. Rabbi Kahn was appointed Rosh Kollel of RIETS’ prestigious Kollel Elyon at its inception and served in that position from 1983 to 1998. At RIETS, Rabbi Kahn was co-editor of the University’s Centennial Torah volume, Yevul Hayovlot, which contained a sampling of the Torah scholarship of Yeshiva’s roshei yeshiva since its inception. He is also the author of nine volumes spanning the entire range of Jewish scholarship. Rabbi Kahn completed eighteen year tenure as spiritual leader of the Downtown Talmud Torah Synagogue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1987. He then moved to the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn where he established Knesseth Bais Avigdor, a unique congregation that provides opportunities for lay people to engage in serious Torah study on a daily basis. His wife, Rebetzin Rachel Kahn, is the principal of the Bais Yaakov of the East Side. Mr. Jablonski established the Chair in Talmud and Codes in memory of his parents, Chaim and Sima Weissman Jablonski, and his brother, Bezalel in July, 1988. Sample Titles Memories of the Rav Perspectives on Tzedaka Teshuvah–It’s Time! The Rambam’s Mitzvah of Koreich Giving Thanks–Hakoras Hatovah: A Yesod in Yahadus Nosai Be’ol im Chaveiro: The Passion in Compassion Chazal’s Perspective on Daily Life...

Rabbi Joshua Kahn serves as the Head of School of the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy/ Yeshiva University High School for Boys (MTA). He is a graduate of Yeshiva University’s Yeshiva College, Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, and Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration, where he is completing his doctorate in education. Prior to MTA, Rabbi Kahn served as the Associate Principal for Judaic Studies and Dean of Student Life at Torah Academy of Bergen County. He pioneered initiatives like the Senior Mentoring and Beit Midrash Programs and organized community programming and disaster relief missions. In addition, he has brought his classroom expertise to his Gemara and Chumash shiurim. He is known for building strong relationships with students and parents and succeeded in streamlining many administrative processes to make them more intuitive, transparent and effective. Sample Titles Pikudei: Building Together Parshat Beshalach; Inspirational Advice for Your Time in Yeshiva Taking the “I” out of Kindness Parshat Behar – Spending Quality Time With Our Children...

Rabbi Dr. Ephraim Kanarfogel is the E. Billi Ivry University Professor of Jewish History, Literature and Law at Yeshiva University. He teaches at the Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies and at Stern College for Women. Professor Kanarfogel is one of the foremost scholars in the fields of medieval Jewish history and rabbinic literature, and is the author five books and more than seventy-five articles. His most recent book, The Intellectual History and Rabbinic Culture of Medieval Ashkenaz, published in 2013, won the prestigious Goldstein-Goren International Book Prize, along with the Jordan Schnitzer Book Award from the Association of Jewish Studies here in the United States. Rabbi Dr. Kanarfogel has held visiting appointments at the University of Pennsylvania and at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and he has lectured at leading universities throughout the world, including Harvard, Cambridge, the Sorbonne, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He serves on the Executive Board as Secretary of the American Academy for Jewish Research, the premier scholarly organization for professors of Jewish studies in North America. Ordained at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary where he was a member of the Kollel, he earned his doctorate in medieval Jewish history at the Bernard Revel Graduate School. In 2002, Rabbi Dr. Kanarfogel became the first person to win Yeshiva’s Samuel Belkin Memorial Literary Award on multiple occasions. He is also a winner of the National Jewish Book award. Sample Titles Precedent and Innovation in the Halakhic Process: Conversion and Reversion to Judaism History and Halakhah: Who will Build the Third Beit Ha-Mikdash? Conceptions of the Messianic Age in Medieval Rabbinic Thought Medieval Halakhic Decision-Making and the Implications for...

Joshua M. Karlip is Associate Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, where he has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses since 2007. His scholarship has focused on the relationship between traditional Judaism and modern secular Jewish movements such as Yiddishism. He addressed this theme in his critically acclaimed book, The Tragedy of a Generation: The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism in Eastern Europe, published by Harvard University Press in 2013. Karlip’s forthcoming book, Oyfn Sheydveg [At the Crossroads]: Jewish Intellectuals and the Crisis of 1939 is a critical edition of a Yiddish journal that served as a forum for Jewish intellectuals to react to Nazism. In this book, Karlip will recover this moment of ideological soul searching for the English reading public. In addition to these volumes, Karlip also contributed a chapter to Jews in the East European Borderlands: Essays in Honor of John D. Klier (Academic Studies Press, 2012). He has also published articles and book reviews in Jewish Social Studies, the Simon Dubnow Institute Yearbook, East European Jewish Affairs, Jewish History, and Polin. In 2009-2010, Karlip served as a Harry Starr Fellow in Judaica at Harvard University. In 2012, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at Leipzig University. In 2010-2011, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research awarded Karlip the Natalie and Mendel Racolin Memorial Fellowship. Since 2011, Karlip has also served as a faculty member in the YIVO-Bard Institute’s Summer Yiddish Program. Most recently, he was asked to become a member of the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History. Karlip has presented his research to scholars at international conferences in the United States and in Europe. At the same time, he lectures in synagogues to lay audiences about many aspects of Modern Jewish History, the East European Jewish experience, and the Holocaust. Sample Titles Fiddler on the Roof: Life in the Real Shtetl? The Good Old Days?: Jews in Tsarist Russia Volozhin: The...

Jill (Citron) Katz is Clinical Assistant Professor of Archaeology at Yeshiva University. She teaches both archaeology and anthropology, with a specialty in biblical archaeology. Dr. Katz has excavated at several sites in Israel, including Ashkelon, Tel Haror/Gerar, and most recently Tell es-Safi/Gath where she currently serves as Field Director for Area P. Her research interests focus on political, religious, and urban development in Bronze and Iron Age Israel. Sample Titles “Who was a Jew?: The formation of Jewish ethnic identity during the time of the Judges What Yitzchak saw when he settled in Gerar?: Canaanite religion during the time of the Patriarchs How Jerusalem became the capital of the Jewish people The origins of the synagogue The Pharaohs who enslaved us: Did the Jews build King Tut’s tomb? Why it is easier to build a synagogue than a Temple Celebrating Passover in the Land of the Pharaohs The Pharaohs who enslaved us In the footsteps of the Philistines Jerusalem and Samaria: A tale of two...

Dr. Susan Klugman is the Director of Clinical Services and Community Outreach for the Program for Jewish Genetic Health of Yeshiva University. She is a board–certified obstetrician gynecologist and a board certified geneticist. Dr. Klugman received her medical degree from New York University in 1988 after completing her undergraduate studies in Biometry and Statistics at Cornell University. She then completed a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Montefiore Medical Center where she continues to practice. In 1993, she founded the Larchmont Women’s Center, a faculty practice office. In 2004, she completed a second residency in medical genetics at the same institution and since 2008 has served as the Director of Reproductive Genetics at Montefiore Medical Center. Dr. Klugman is also an Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women’s Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and is a member of the Faculty Senate and the Admissions Committee. She has given lectures to many Jewish organizations over the past two decades on various topics pertaining to women’s health Sample Titles Family Health and Halacha Jewish Genetic Disease Screening in the US – Historical Perspective, Financial Considerations and Clinical Recommendations What’s Jewish About Breast Cancer and Ovarian Cancer – Stay Informed for Yourself and Your...

Rabbi Eliakim Koenigsberg is a rosh yeshiva in the Yeshiva Program/Mazer School of Talmudic Studies at Yeshiva College of Yeshiva University. Rabbi Koenigsberg was a chaver (fellow) of the Gruss Kollel Elyon and previously served for five years as rebbe (instructor) in the Stone Beit Midrash Program. Rabbi Koenigsberg is a 1988 alumnus of Yeshiva College, from which he graduated summa cum laude. He received ordination from the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary in 1992. A sought-after lecturer, he has served RIETS and Yeshiva in other capacities as well: as director of an honors seminar in Sefer Shev Shmaitsa; as sgan mashgiach/shoeI u’meishiv (mentor and guidance advisor to students); director of RIETS’ Presidential B’kiut Program; rosh kollel of Yeshiva’s summer kollel in Silver Spring, Md.; shoel u’meishiv for 10th-grade students at the Yeshiva University High School for Boys; and as a teaching assistant there for 11th-grade students. He is the author of two annotated volumes of selected shiurim (lectures) by the Rav, the late Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, and he recently published a collection of his notes on Tractate Yevamos called “Kuntres He ‘aros al Maseches Yevamos.” Sample Titles When is Price Fraud Considered Ona’ah? Parshas Pekudei: Setting Goals and Evaluating Accomplishments Teshuva and Talmud...

Dr. Aaron Koller is an assistant professor of Bible in Yeshiva College. Aaron received his doctorate in Bible and Semitics in the Revel School of Jewish Studies after doing coursework at the University of Pennsylvania and YU, where he focused on Semitic and other Near Eastern languages and Iron Age history, while also studying linguistics, Bible, Levantine archaeology, and Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism. He also has a strong interest in contemporary ethical thought. He has written papers about Aramaic dialects and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and also teaches classes on biblical interpretation and history at the Drisha Institute. Sample Titles The Uniqueness of Man in Eden and in Science Human Development and the “Sin” of Eden The Philistines in the Bible and in History Reconstructing Sennacherib’s Attack on Judah Archaeology in the Study of the Bible Where did the Alphabet Come From? Aramaic Sources from Biblical Times Everyday Life in Biblical Times The “Ma‘aseh Merkavah” of Ezekiel: Its Meaning and Significance The Modern Book in the Bible: Kohelet Amos, a Radical in his Time How do we Know What a Biblical Hebrew Word Means? The Structure and Purpose of the Book of Deuteronomy “Torah from Zion”: Jerusalem as the International Court of Justice in Isaiah 2 The Law of the Slanderer The Structure and Meaning of the Book of Ezekiel Homicide: Halakhic and Neuropsychological Aspects The Power and Meaning of Martyrdom Language Choices in Second Temple Judaism and Rabbinic Literature The Language and Character of Hillel the Elder The Limits of Halakha The Dual Nature of Rosh...